With only weeks to go before welcoming her fourth child into the world, Satnerine Tomlin of Whitehouse, Westmoreland, is facing the unimaginable as she is now left homeless after Hurricane Melissa tore through her community, leaving her house in ruins.

Tomlin, due to give birth on November 22, lost everything, including her clothes, her children’s belongings and all the items she had prepared for her unborn child.

“Mi house gone, mi no have no weh fi live and mi soon have baby. Mi have three pickney plus one inna mi belly and mi house gone. Everything gone and a next month mi fi have baby. All the baby bath with everything gone out of the house, a just the land spot left up deh,” Tomlin told Observer Online on Friday.

Tomlin is now staying temporarily in a family home with her three children.

“A wah house up deh so mi a kotch up inna, a family house, fi the time being until better come,” she added.

The mother appealed for urgent assistance, whether in the form of food, clothing or help to rebuild her home.

“Only thing mi could save back a mi baby documents them, mi birth paper and mi ID [identification], nothing else. A disaster happen down yah,” she said. “Not even little drinking water we can’t get. Everybody a say fi dem water have to serve. Mi a get one little bottle of water for $700.”

Tomlin’s story is echoed by many in the Whitehouse community.

Shanakay Campbell, another resident, is struggling to find diapers for her one-year-old and said her family too has been left to pick up the pieces.

“Yes all a my pickney them clothes damage. Mi a try look two piece a something here so (the market) and a woman rush mi. Mi affi say almighty, we need to unite that’s why the country nah go better. Mi no follow her mi go take them up same way,” she said.

When the Observer toured Whitehouse and other parts of Westmoreland, the devastation was clear. Many homes had lost roofs entirely, wooden structures were flattened and power lines laid scattered across roads, a stark reminder of the hurricane’s forcefulness.

Tomlin described her experience during Hurricane Melissa as traumatic.

“We traumatise [but] God deh by we side. Wi inna the house, me and mi three pickney them and a next girl with her baby and the man. The house top lift off with we and we affi go inna the bathroom. The breeze blow off the bathroom door, we affi brace up. We affi run out inna the rain over a next house. The next house we run inna the window them mash out. A inna water we sleep the night,” she recalled.